1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a pan head control system for a TV camera which drives a pan head to pan and tilt a TV camera carried by the pan head.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When taking a picture of, for instance, track or motor race, the cameraman must pan and tilt a TV camera supported on a tripod on the course side to track moving objects such as racers while zooming and/or focusing the TV lens. Thus obtaining smooth images requires a great deal of skill.
There has been proposed a TV camera control system in which a TV camera is mounted on a pan head which is provided with a drive mechanism such as a servo mechanism for driving the pan head to pan and tilt the TV camera and the cameraman manipulates the drive mechanism by way of an actuator such as a joy stick of an operation unit. See, for instance, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 1(1989)-256876.
That is, the TV camera control system comprises a servo mechanism for swinging the pan head left and right and up and down to pan and tilt the TV camera, another servo mechanism for zooming and focusing the TV lens, a memory means for storing movements of the servo mechanisms as data, and control means which controls the servo mechanisms on the basis of the data stored in the memory means to reproduce the panning and tilting of the TV camera and the zooming and focusing of the TV lens.
In the TV camera control system, the data to be stored in the memory means is obtained by actually driving the pan head to move the aim of the TV camera to desired positions. Accordingly, when the aim of the TV camera is to be moved along a predetermined path as when taking a picture of track, data must be stored while moving the camera to move the aim of the TV camera to various points on the predetermined path and the number of the points must be as large as possible in order to smoothly move the TV camera in the following operation, which requires a long time and troublesome operation.
That is, when the TV camera is moved, the amount of the movement is difficult to determine on the TV screen, and accordingly, especially when the aim of the TV camera is to be moved along a curved path, a skilled cameraman is required to input the data.